Posts

The stars still have secrets. we know why they shine, and we know why they twinkle, but we still do not know why they move the way they move. The problem has been with us for the better part of a century. In the 1930s Swiss astronomer Fritz Zwicky observed that some galaxies in a cluster of about 1,000 fly surprisingly fast around their common center of mass. Even with generous estimates of the individual galaxies’ masses, they did not add up enough to account for this motion....

By Elaine Lies TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan said on Friday it would conduct a sharply scaled down form of its annual Northwest Pacific whaling campaign this year despite an international court ruling last month against the mainstay of its whaling program in the Antarctic. The decision to proceed with the hunt was certain to provoke international anger and promptly drew the fire of environmentalists. Tokyo’s decades-old and disputed “scientific whaling” program suffered a blow last month when the International Court of Justice (ICJ), in a surprise ruling, ordered a halt to its annual hunts in the Southern Ocean....

Many animals use alarm calls to warn others in their species about a predator. But that does not entirely explain what Adams saw—because the monkeys continued calling even after the entire group became aware of the threat. A more tantalizing possibility is that the monkeys were addressing the cat itself, blowing its cover and warning it to call off the hunt. The alarm calls proved an effective deterrent, prompting the ocelots to move away from the loudspeaker....

From the Andes to the Himalayas, scientists are starting to question exactly how much glaciers contribute to river water used downstream for drinking and irrigation. The answers could turn the conventional wisdom about glacier melt on its head. A growing number of studies based on satellite data and stream chemistry analyses have found that far less surface water comes from glacier melt than previously assumed. In Peru’s Rio Santa, which drains the Cordilleras Blanca mountain range, glacier contribution appears to be between 10 and 20 percent....

For the 37-year-old Black singer and actor, the news accounts and social media videos of racial violence and the killings of unarmed Black people that too often go unpunished were not just demoralizing, they were traumatizing. “It gets to the point where you decide, ‘I have to turn off the television because I have my sanity to take care of,’” says Ellington, an Arkansas native who lives in New York. “It’s like a sadness, a hopelessness....

The deep thud of a 155-millimeter howitzer echoes off the mountains as what looks like an artillery shell speeds from the gun barrel. Within less than a second, however, the shell inflates into a full-fledged airplane with a six-foot wingspan. It soars through a smoke-filled sky toward a forest fire too hot and unpredictable for conventional airplanes to fly low and track. It is just a matter of a few tweaks over the next year before inflatable vehicles should be able to fulfill such a role, say engineers at ILC Dover, an engineering company based in Delaware....

Arriving late at a party and after greeting a few people, I found myself standing at the entrance next to a clever and stylish mathematician named Caroline. Skipping any form of greeting, she said, “There are nine people including us at this party. Could each person at this party have shaken hands with a different number of people, given that germophobe Ron over there hasn’t shaken hands with anyone?” I took a while before answering....

And then there’s a new offshoot, the raw vegan diet, which deems cooking to be unnatural and unhealthy. An increasing number of celebrities — most recently, tennis sensation Venus Williams — swear by this diet as the best way to prevent and reverse diseases and to stay young and vital. Testimonials from ordinary folks are endless, boasting advantages along the lines of having more energy, better skin, improved relationships with woodland creatures and so on....

In July 2014, in Kenya an HIV-testing and counseling services (HTS) counselor confirmed that I had HIV, initiating me into a new world of stigma and discrimination. All I could do was accept my diagnosis and live one day at a time, because I thought I could drop dead any day. I was 17, in a boarding school in Africa and I had lots of questions. How did I acquire the virus?...

Creativity has enabled humans to conquer every corner of this planet. Indeed our yen for innovation is one of the most salient characteristics of our kind. Yet our species is not the only one given to inventiveness. Researchers have documented the capacity in a growing number of other creatures. And some of their findings run counter to received wisdom about the origins of creativity and how to foster it in human minds....

California’s August Complex Fire tore through more than 1,600 square miles of forest last summer, igniting nearly every tree in its path. It was the largest wildfire in the state’s recorded history, breaking the record previously set in 2018—which had broken the one set the year before. In the fire’s aftermath, land managers confronting the effects of steadily larger and hotter infernos burning enormous swaths of forest must determine where to most efficiently plant new trees....

The day after the U.S. Department of the Interior announced it would pause leasing of coal on federal lands and conduct a comprehensive review of the program, Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead (R) took to the internet and proudly pledged that the Cowboy State would fight for its coal. “We know we can improve coal’s environmental footprint while meeting increased global demand,” he wrote in a column published on the online news site WyoFile on Jan....

Long believed extinct, the spectacular ivory-billed woodpecker has been spotted in eastern Arkansas’ Big Woods region, scientists say. The last confirmed sighting of the bird occurred in 1944.The ivory-billed woodpecker (Campephilus principalis) is one of the world’s largest woodpecker species, with a wingspan of nearly three feet. Though never commonplace, the bird inhabited lowland primary forest across the southeastern U.S. until logging between 1880 and the 1940s largely destroyed its habitat....

An environmental health advocacy organization has released a list of what it says are the 12 worst hormone-disrupting chemicals. These chemicals, known as endocrine disruptors, interfere with the actions of hormones in the human body in some way — for instance, by imitating natural hormones, or increasing or decreasing hormone production, according to Environmental Working Group (EWG), the organization that put together the list. The list includes some chemicals that have been scrutinized for their potential ability to interfere with hormones and affect reproduction, such as bisphenol A (BPA) and phthalates, although studies on these chemicals are not definitive....

If pimples are caused by oily skin, why doesn’t a good washing prevent all breakouts? A recent study offers an answer— and maybe a new line of defense. Pimples contain tiny and discrete bacterial infections. The most commonly involved bacteria are Cutibacterium acnes, which live innocuously on skin cells but can grow out of control when the skin’s oily sebum increases and boosts bacterial food supply. What we think of as acne—the pustules, redness and swelling—is a battle between our immune system and these rapidly multiplying bacteria, says dermatologist Richard Gallo of the University of California, San Diego, who led the new study....

In 2006, reduced thickness of ice roads forced the Diavik Diamond Mine in Northern Canada to fly in fuel rather than try to transport cargo across melted pathways, at an extra cost of $11.25 million. The mountain pine beetle outbreak in British Columbia—fueled by higher winter temperatures that allow insects to survive—expanded in recent years to be 10 times greater than any previously recorded outbreak in the province. Mortality rates of sockeye salmon, meanwhile, have increased because of higher water temperatures in the Fraser River....

After conducting three successful robotic lunar missions between 2007 and 2013, China’s blossoming moon exploration program appears to be entering a slower, more tentative phase. The nation had intended to loft its Chang’e 5 spacecraft on a Long March 5 rocket by the end of the year, to land on and retrieve samples from the lunar surface. But a July launch failure of another Long March 5 has seemingly deferred those efforts for months—perhaps years....

By Kathy Chen and David Stanway China will stop the construction of coal-fired power plants in 15 regions as part of its efforts to tackle a capacity glut in the sector, the country’s energy regulator said on Thursday, confirming an earlier media report. The Southern Energy Observer, a magazine run by the state-owned China Southern Power Grid Corp, said regulators had halted the construction of coal-fired plants in regions where capacity was already in surplus, including the major coal producing centres of Inner Mongolia, Shanxi and Shaanxi....

A shortage of sodium thiopental, a fast-acting barbiturate and general anesthetic used in lethal injections of death-row convicts, has delayed several such executions throughout the U.S. and reignited a long-standing debate over the combination of chemicals used to carry out capital punishment. Most recently, Arizona inmate Jeffrey Landrigan was executed Tuesday night only after a delay caused by a legal battle over the source and quality of the sodium thiopental used as part of the lethal injection....

Farmers, exterminators, homeowners and others in the U.S. use roughly one billion pounds of pesticides every year to eliminate weeds, insects and other nuisances. But many of those chemicals end up in the nation’s waterways. In fact, a 10-year survey reveals that even in remote areas–far from pavement runoff or agricultural by-products–65 percent of streams contain traces of one or more pesticides. Hydrologist Robert Gilliom of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and his team tested waters in 51 areas across the country for 75 pesticides between 1992 and 2001, including water samples from 186 streams and more than 5,000 wells along with sediment from more than 1,000 waterways....